Publication:
MaximumRockNRoll

Author:
Felix Von Havoc

MRR #182 Metal
I love the "Pioneers of Punk" section in MRR. I am a big fan of 70's punk rock especially the Stooges, MC5, the Heartbreakers, the Voidoids, Dead Boys, Pagans etc. I have to say that almost none of the bands that have arisen in the last 20 years to play this style of music come close. Perhaps there was a certain zeitgeist present in the Midwest and New York City in the 1970's that can never be recaptured. This said, as much as I love this music it all happened when I was in grade school and for me the run up to hardcore was not "Velvets to the Voidoids" rock and roll it was METAL. (All of you ex-Straight Edge kids who got into metal by listening to Integrity and missed 80's metal because your parents wouldn't let you grow your hair long or smoke pot are allowed to take notes).

My name is Felix Havoc and I was an adolescent Metalhead. In fact I think I speak for many of us who are involved in Hardcore today when I say that our nascent exposure to hardcore was from the scanty coverage of punk in Creem and Kerrang. Lets set our time machine for the golden age of MBM, that is Metal Before Metallica. Circa 1982 who was ruling with an Iron Fist? JUDAS PRIEST! Masters of all metal. Those of you scratching your heads and wondering what the fuck Felix is talking about are hereby required to get a scratched up vinyl copy of Unleashed in the East and listen to it at top volume in total darkness after drinking a six pack of warm Schaefer and smoking some of your parent's pot. Perhaps then you will understand. Until recently Metal was the music of the white working class youth. I'm not trying to perpetrate racial stereotypes or anything but the slow death of Metal has been paralleled by the adoption of black youth culture by the white youth. This leads us to the ultimate hypocrisy of upper class white kids who dress and talk urban black gangsta style down to calling each other "nigga" but who are still racist shits. Anyway here we are in 1982, blue collar suburban America. The cars Plymouth Duster, Chevy Nova (poor kids answers to Camaro and Mustang). The style long hair, boot cut jeans, bandannas, leather caps, chain wallets, white Converse in summer, hiking boots in winter, big comb in back pocket, sleeveless denim vest, and of course a concert jersey preferably a really old one from a show you couldn't have possibly attended. (most desirable Black Sabbath/BOC "Black and Blue" tour shirt Rush "Moving Pictures", any Judas Priest, AC DC or Alice Cooper). The Music Heavy Metal Stoner Rock!

While not really Metal Alice Cooper does not get any of the respect he deserves. Here is a man who took the shocking and theatrical stage show and raw loud rock to great heights. The first two albums Pretties for You and Easy Action are not so great but Love it to Death and Killers are fucking awesome. KISS are fucking posers and ripped off Alice so bad it is not even funny. All you misguided Kiss fans are grown up teeny boppers. Kiss was all hype and marketing to sell lunch boxes and belt buckles to grade schoolers. Alice Cooper continued to kick ass with Muscle of Love and Billion Dollar Babies ( covered by the Battalion of Saints and Detonators respectively) but things went downhill fast after the band quit and Alice went "solo." Those who dismiss Alice on the basis of his lackluster later albums need to do some research and check out the discs listed above.

Black Sabbath of course are hugely influential, once again not really metal but Stoner Rock. I saw Sabbath in 1981 on the Mob Rules tour, a spectacle I will never forget. The fact that this band continues to inspire legions of derivative imitations twenty years after putting out a good album is testament to their power in the world of rock. AC DC has been one of my favorite bands since I was old enough to lift a tone arm and the first band I really got into but there is a whole column devoted to AC DC that will be printed in a future issue. Rush was a Stoner Rock band until somebody got them mixed up with synthesizers, now they are a New Wave band, I got no beef with New Wave but Rush after Moving Pictures sucked. To be honest I was never really into Iron Maiden, or Def Leppard in fact I sat out the NWOBHM because the Old British Heavy Metal was still kicking my ass that is to say JUDAS PRIEST! Undeniably the Masters of All Metal. I recommend the following albums: Sad Wings of Destiny, Sin After Sin, Stained Class, Hell Bent for Leather, Unleashed in the East, British Steel, Screaming for Vengeance, Point of Entry, and Defenders of the Faith, possibly also Painkiller and Rocka Rolla. NOT recommended are Turbo and Ram it Down. Not exactly before Metallica chronologically, but stylistically we cannot forget the first two Motley Crue Lps, and vintage WASP and Twisted Sister. It has long been my opinion and the ladies of the 80's reading this will corroborate that Crue's "Too Fast For Love" is one of the all time best "make out records" no doubt tied with Highway to Hell and Back in Black. Raven deserves some credit for "Faster than the speed of light." Also worth mention is Accept even if just for the song "Balls to the Wall." Metallica almost singlehandedly changed metal with their first album. By ripping of Hardcore they created speed metal and ushered in the explosion of Metal which made the 80's truly "the Metal Years." Metallica's first two albums kick ass and I'd have to say Kill 'em All is the second best Thrash Metal record ever. However, Metallica degenerated rapidly in arena rock mediocrity and are currently indistinguishable from U-2.

Behold! The ultimate in thrash metal arose at the same time as Metallica, soon to eclipse them, yes I am talking about Slayer. I must confess I was at the Corrosion of Conformity/ Slayer show at the Loft in Baltimore in 1985 but I left before Slayer played because at the time I was in a state of Hardcore chauvinist Metal Denial (which I later overcame). To my mind the ultimate Thrash Metal record of all time is Slayer's Reign in Blood. Hell Awaits, Show No Mercy and Haunting the Chapel are also great. Too bad Slayer stayed together after Reign in Blood, I think they are still putting out albums, they will probably soon be joining Metallica in embracing mediocre pop. Metal since Reign In Blood has been in downward spiral towards obscurity, marked by stylistic decadence and mind numbing repetition of formulaic imitation. So lets go back to 80's metal. Currently in vogue is so called "black metal" so far as I'm concerned you can skip the entire black metal fad by going back to the roots and picking up the following records by Celtic Frost: Morbid Tales, To Mega-Therion, Tragic Serenades and Emporer's Return. And by Bathory the Self Titled LP, the Return and Under the Sign of the Black Mark. I personally like to take my viking helmets and Satan worship seriously but if you are into goofball parody there is of course Venom and Manowar. If you like your Satan worship mixed with opera style vocals I recommend Mercyful Fate. Also note that Anthrax was a good band for about twenty minutes at the beginning of their career and put out an awesome album called Fist full of Metal. Onslaught was one of those bands that started out punk, went metal and sucked but in between put out one good crossover album Power From Hell. Also notable in this category is Sacrilege who put out two awesome LP's Behind the Realms of Madness and Within the Prophecy before degenerating into castles in the sky sword metal. In the future I will write an entire column dealing with Cross Over (Hence the omission of Napalm Death, Cryptic Slaughter etc.) for now I will say that most cross over bands were much better at hardcore than metal, which is why this column is full of metal bands and not cross over bands. Dr. Know is about the only band I can think of which was just as good a metal band as they were hardcore. What happened to COC, The Accused and DRI when they ventured too far from their hardcore roots? I cannot write about Metal or Hard Rock without paying respect to Motorhead especially the early material. But Motorhead already have plenty of people singing their praises. When was the last time anyone out there spun Possessed's Seven Churches or Voivod's War and Pain or Roooaaar. Whiplash's drummer now plays in re-formed Cause For Alarm, no shit. I am obliged here to mention Hirax, but I must admit I was more impressed by Pushead and Mad Marc Rude's cover art than by their music. Next month perhaps I will return to hardcore but until then Death to False Metal!

Publication Date:
January 1, 1988

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